Can Xue - Five Spice Street

Did this so-called high stage consist of no more than walks and ostentatious displays? Was what we cared about most realized in this, and from now on we’d be happy forever? Hey, dear ones, this can’t be right. This is nothing more than a lengthy preparatory period. The true, substantial thing, the joy per se, is something very serious: who knows when it will do me in. I understand this all too well. Therefore, why should I take that decisive step? Why? The reason is that I can’t find the right partner. My wife and I did go for a walk, and rolled around on the beach, endlessly chasing each other in a certain mood, as if advancing swiftly toward the highest objective. We were both overjoyed, filled with self-confidence. Was it possible that the ants emerged on the scene for no reason? Could outside factors interfere so much in our future? Ha, this was merely a hoax. There might have been ants, and there might not have been ants. It depends on your will. If you think they’re there, they are. If you don’t pay attention to them, they don’t exist. So the sticking point of the problem lies with my wife. She always believed that joy was her affair alone and definitely didn’t want to share the joy with me. Not a bit. As for my experiencing this high stage, she was simply a bystander. She said she’d ‘‘never feel this.’’ What’s more, she also said this was trumped up, ‘‘plagiarized,’’ that she’d ‘‘rather die than share joy with me.’’ The reason she patiently walked ten miles with me was merely ‘‘to see what stupid trick I’d play’’ and then jeer at me later. She also said that she had never guessed that I was such ‘‘horseshit.’’ Those flowery motions were like acrobatic shows. If she wanted to watch a show, she’d be better off spending twenty cents at the theatre. What did these naked acrobatics amount to?

Now, dear ones, do you understand the significance of the ants? Even if you could visualize the joy perfectly, without a partner it would still end in tragedy. My heart is bleeding! There’s too much despair, solitude, and loneliness! Too much!! Ifyou think you want to pursue high-level ‘‘spare-time recreation,’’ and if you think you want to climb to the peak of joy, defeat awaits you, shock awaits you, and you stand in a deserted field. The sun lengthens your shadow, and lengthens it some more. Under your feet, there’s no road you can take. One slight move and you’ll lose your balance. Or you’ll fall into the grip of a malevolent being, and thus, the damn ants appear.

When you set out, you and your companion are holding hands. You walk on a long riverbank, your heart overflowing with lofty passion. You think everything is going according to plan. You feel you have a good grasp of it. And you feel you’ve become somebody. You don’t realize that you have overlooked one thing, an important matter related to the future. This is none other than my damn wife (when did she bore her way into my life? How did this bitch swindle my trust?). She fully manipulated my purity and my idealism. She masterminded this in secret. She planned to pull off a major hoax. She walked on with me and actually blushed. It seemed that she was even more stimulated than I was, and she kept sighing, ‘‘Ah, I truly like you! Ah, I truly like you!’’ She did this in such a way that I thought she would turn reckless. How could I have guessed that she was feigning? I had already lived by myself so many years in solitude and loneliness, and now all at once I felt I had a soulmate! Didn’t I find this most welcome? I was patient, planning to walk the whole ten miles and bring my pursuit of my ideals to completion. My wife couldn’t hold back any longer, and in desperation she said I was steely and unfeeling and didn’t satisfy her demands. I advised her patiently that this ten-mile walk was the lowest stage and that a higher enjoyment awaited us. If we didn’t finish the ten miles, if we didn’t let our emotions ferment completely (this was a little like qigong), and if we entered into this hastily, we would regret it in the future. Suppose that all our preparation was merely for that one minute of intercourse that had no feeling at all-wouldn’t that be purposely making things difficult for ourselves? We could do that at home. We certainly didn’t have to do it so mysteriously.

The more I said, the more spirited my wife became. Just when we were about to reach the place that was our objective, she jumped up and threw me to the ground. She said she wanted to experience this herself. She didn’t want me to seize the initiative. At this, my joy was ruined. I lost self-control. I performed the damned one-minute thing as if dead. The color drained from my face, and I was sweating all over. I couldn’t believe what had just happened to me! Women: what the hell are they? Where do they get such great strength? Why hadn’t I figured out ahead of time all that was going to happen and prepared for it? Why did I give her my trust from the bottom of my heart? Friends, I curse those one-minute quickies. I wish to become an ascetic forever. I will. Only through this will I have any hope, because I’ve already become a joke, I’ve already been nearly destroyed.

After the incident of the ten miles, someone behind me was actually furtively happy, wanting to see me make a spectacle of myself. My wife and her confederates privately judged me to be ‘‘a kiss- ass,’’ who kissed Madam X’s ass, a public enemy of the entire Five Spice Street community. Some days when I was dizzy in the morning and didn’t get up, they also crowded into my room, squatted at the foot of the bed, and declared that they needed to observe me and see ‘‘what acrobatics I performed under the covers.’’ I didn’t dare move. Unluckily, bedbugs also joined in the fun. All I could do was clench my teeth. Had I really been brought down? No. I had to turn my bad luck into momentum and struggle to demonstrate my existence to the world. On the third day after I had completely lost faith in the morals of these times, I began to pull myself together. I climbed to the roof of our thatched cottage and sat there cross-legged. I worked on summarizing all the lessons I’d learned in my lifetime. This included a new description of the high stage of sexual joy. I sat up there quietly, facing the firmament. Below were all the busy living things. I felt truly detached. I could hardly hear the sounds of the world. My thinking progressed steadily toward a high philosophical level. Days went by-both sunny days and rainy days. I’d become fossilized on the roof of the thatched cottage, or I had become a white-haired, omniscient old philosopher. I merged into the great universe and embraced the whole world. Humankind became adorable, even though their ways of having sexual intercourse were so absurd.

One day, in a gentle mood, while immersed in abstract thought and with a slight smile on my face, I felt unbearable pain in the soles of my feet. I almost fainted. My thoughts were interrupted. I heard loud shouting from below. With my wife in the lead, a group of people were jabbing me with sharpened bamboo poles. They were shouting, ‘‘Bring this pile of horseshit down from the roof.’’ They also said, ‘‘The smelly fart from the roof has gotten into the cooking pot.’’ The fart ‘‘was the smell of the public enemy of Five Spice Street’s people.’’ Their shouting grew louder and louder. It was impossible to defend against their assault. My neck, chest, and ass were hit several times. My blood streamed down. Seeing this, my wife and her followers were so frightened they threw the bamboo poles away and ran off. I heard them talking to each other and disclaiming responsibility. The disturbance had ended, and once more philosophical thoughts occupied my mind. I felt that I had become steadier than ever. A gigantic consciousness of self-confidence was obscurely nascent. Who was I? What was my mission? Why was I sitting alone on the roof while people all over the world were playing out the drama of life below me? After forty-nine days, or maybe sixty-four days (I had long since lost any sense of time), I finally came down from the roof, bringing with me a crystal-clear mind. When I walked into the dark room, all the elites present were filled with deep esteem: they shook with anxiety at each step I took.